Fatherly Advice
by myao3stories
Summary: Morgan is confused over Severa and her feelings, so he asks his father just how it is he should approach her about discussing it. Priam gives it his all to help his son as best as he can.
1. Pondering

On the battlefield, one must always expect the unexpected. Usually, this comes in the form of ambushes or traps, or else other unforeseeable occurrences from within your own forces. Priam prides himself on always seeing the outcomes of battle before they begin, few things ever come as a shock to him.

"Hey Father, do you think we could talk about girls for a minute?"

The question came out of the blue and threw Priam off guard. The sword he was training with missed its mark completely and slid out of his hand, planting itself several feet away.

"I didn't surprise you, did I?" Morgan asked with a concerned look. Luckily for them both, few people dared to train near Priam, so the only ones at risk from flying swords were Morgan and Priam, himself.

"Don't be ridiculous!" Priam tried to play it off, moving to grab the fallen sword. "I was merely testing to see if other swords could be thrown in a similar fashion to Ragnell."

Morgan eyed his father skeptically, the same look his own wife gave him when he had to come up with similar saves.

Priam cleared his throat loudly as he stood back in front of his son, mostly to distract Morgan from putting two and two together as fast as he would. "Girl trouble. I hear you have some problems."

"Yeah! See, a few weeks ago, Severa gave me this really delicious soup, but it was missing something…" Morgan furrowed his brow, "Come to think of it, she still didn't tell me what she put in it the second time…"

"Focus, Morgan."

"Right! Uh, so, after I said it was missing something, she gave me ANOTHER bowl of soup and, man, it was delicious! Way better than before, even."

Priam was starting to see what the problem might be. It was so obvious that even he, a man so focused on his own self, could see it as clear as day.

"Anyways, she told me to ponder it over while I cleaned up the pot and bowl, but it's been on my mind for weeks!"

"Weeks? Well, that's not so bad…" Priam let out a small sigh of relief. If all Severa is waiting on is a confession of sorts, then the problem would be easy to solve.

"Well, I didn't finish…"

 _Uh oh_ , Priam thought, girding himself.

"See, she moved into my tent with me, and every so often we cook and eat together! Even late at night she won't go back to her own tent and has to stay in my cot, with _me_ even. She specifically said 'You are NOT sleeping on the floor unless you're in trouble', and I've been even more confused since!"

Priam was stunned for a few moments. Apparently he has started a tradition of women slowly working into the lives of those they love through homelier activities. Why can't potential lovers simply fight one another in duels until they discover mutual attraction? It'd be far simpler than this!

"Father? Your jaw has dropped."

So it had. Priam quickly closed his mouth and put his hand on his chin, as though in thought. "Morgan, what I'm about to ask you is possibly the most important thing I will ask you in your life."

"Ask away, Father, I'm ready!"

"Do you," Priam paused for dramatic effect, and because he was attempting to formulate how to ask the question without being so direct, "have affections for this woman beyond being a comrade-in-arms?"

"Ah, well," Morgan's face steadily growing red spoke louder than his stuttering words. "W-well, it'd be hard not to with all that we've shared over the past while…" There were some things that Morgan could never tell his father, the embarrassment from it resonated loudly within some instinctual part of his mind.

"Then I'm about to send you on the most important mission of your life."

Morgan nodded determinately, a stern and serious expression crossed his face.

"You need to go purchase a ring. A woman's ring, the best one you can find that you believe she would like- no, she must _adore_ it."

"A… ring? But where am I supposed to get one?"

"A jeweler, most likely…"

"Oh! Phew! I thought you were going to send me to scour some ancient tomb or other. Or maybe fight a dragon for its horde of gold and jewels!"

Priam put a hand on Morgan's shoulder. "Son, please, this is serious. Find her ring size – not by asking her directly – and get the ring. If you need gold, just grab some from my tent, I'll cover you from your mother's inquires."

"Right! This will have to have a lot of recon involved… Who do you think would know besides her?"

"Why not ask that ponce of a man? The dancer, not the archer."

"Genius! If anyone knows anything about the ladies in the army, it's him! All the times he's gotten slapped by them, he must have felt out the size purely by instinct." Without another word, Morgan dashed off to find Inigo.

Priam set the sword down and ran a hand through his hair. "I… should probably follow him to make sure he doesn't make a fool of himself. And to make sure I read the situation properly," he said this to no one in particular as he followed in his son's wake.


	2. Interrogation

The first step to solving this mystery would involve an interrogation. No doubt that Inigo would be stingy with his information on Severa, possibly attempting to extort Morgan for it. This would require careful maneuvering to be sure.

Several feet away, Priam followed behind his son, intent on making sure nothing horrible occurs.

Inigo had his arms folded and his foot was tapping hard enough to make an audible thud against the grass. "Morgan, I appreciate you trying to talk to me, but I've got to get somewhere else. If I'm any more late, chances are she won't even talk to me today."

"Huh? Oh, you mean those duels with Kjelle, right?" Morgan snickered, "No offence, but there's not really a whole lot of conversation going on during those."

"You said you needed something, and this is sounding more like I'm not going to give you anything." Inigo turned to walk away, only stopped by Morgan grabbing his tunic.

"Gah! Alright, I'm sorry!" Morgan turned Inigo back around, keeping his arms on his friend's shoulders. "Look, I need to know Severa's ring size, and you're the only guy I know who might know that!"

"Then go ask _her_! How do you think I was able to get a ring for her?"

Morgan's face lit up. "Oh, wait, if you already have a ring, then give it to me!"

Priam acted quickly in a way that only a trained swordsman and father would. He waved his arms frantically, shaking his head "No!" at Inigo. Inigo saw this display and started to wonder just what he did today to deserve such an odd afternoon. "Something tells me I shouldn't give it to you to give to her…" _Or someone_ , Inigo thought.

"All I know is my Father wants me to get Severa a ring because she's been staying in my tent for so long! If I can't get yours to give her, then let me borrow it so I can get the ring size from it."

Inigo was utterly baffled. He wanted to just go get his face bashed in, at least _that_ made sense. After a few moments of just staring silently and slack-jawed at Morgan, trying to divine if this was all some elaborate ploy by someone for some nefarious purpose. But since Morgan was about as incorruptible as can be. "Alright. Just, uh, return it when you're done with it..?"

Inigo removed the ring from his pocket, why he kept it on himself, few could understand. He handed it to a grateful Morgan who dashed off saying, "You won't regret this, I promise!"

With Morgan out of sight, Priam made his move. He approached Inigo and stared the young man down. To his credit, Inigo was still too confused to be intimidated. "You. Dancing man. You and I are going to aid my son."

"But I have-"

"Yes, I am aware you have an appointment to get mauled this afternoon," Priam wrapped an arm around Inigo and began to walk with him. "This is more important than your courtship. For one thing, he has more of a chance to maintain his relationship, especially compared to your lackluster attacks on that woman's defence."

 _At least she doesn't insult anymore and just sticks to smacking me around_ , Inigo thought bitterly. "I'll have you know that I'm getting closer every day!"

"Well, at least it's good training for real battle considering no enemy has matched that defence that I've seen."

"You still haven't said _why_ I should help you."

"Do you really have anything else to do?"

Inigo's eye began to twitch involuntarily. He desperately wanted to shout "Yes!", but he figured that the sooner that he got out of this kooky man's grip, the better.

Priam nodded and patted Inigo's chest. "Good answer. Now then, you have the most important job beyond Morgan's: I need you to distract Severa so she doesn't suspect a single thing about Morgan not being in camp."

"B-But _she's_ not in camp!" There was a moment of clarify in Inigo's life as he realized this feeling of dread from being dragged somewhere he didn't want to go was most likely what Brady and Gerome felt. Fate was a cruel mistress.

The two stopped in their tracks as Priam grabbed Inigo's shoulders. The young man winced at the grip and was suddenly thankful that Morgan didn't have that kind of pressure yet. "Please tell me she's off in the woods training or climbing a mountain in order to test herself."

"I'm not one to really _lie_ , per se, so I think it's better to tell what I've heard on the grapevine." Inigo pried one of Priam's hands off of him. "From what I understand, Severa took Cynthia and Lucina out to go have 'girl time' while we had such off time."

Priam gave Inigo an intense stare, trying to work out just what that actually meant. "You're more in-tune with women, at least in some fashion. Guess what they might be doing."

"How should _I_ know?"

"They are your closest comrades, I'm quite sure a man like you could make an educated guess."

"I don't know if I should be insulted or grateful for that, but fine…" Inigo ran a hand through his hair. "If this is really that important to you, I'll do my best to help. Can I at least go explain this to Kjelle so she doesn't track me down?"

Priam nodded. "Very well, dancer, you will meet me at the edge of town. No doubt Morgan has quite the lead, but catching up to him should be little trouble…"

 _Is this karma?_ Inigo wondered, plodding off towards Kjelle's usual spot.


	3. Contemplation

Outside of a women's bathhouse, Priam and Inigo stood across the street from it, watching the door from an alley. It was sheer luck that Kjelle had other plans this afternoon at the behest of Laurent, though Inigo didn't think she was that into massages, but he could investigate that later. His thought process was interrupted when Priam spoke up, "Alright. Go in and ask if they're there."

Inigo looked at the older man as though he was crazy. He may be a flirt, but Inigo would never dream of going near a women's only bath. Mostly because he grew up with tales of horses who would chase down such peeping toms, and Inigo (like most humans) was not faster than a charging demon horse. Not to mention, it would have to be considerably lucky to find them at the first place they checked.

"Well? What are you waiting for?"

"How about a real reason to doing so? Look, I would do anything for my friends, but I won't do _that_."

"It's not like I'm asking you to go into the baths. Surely they have some kind of reception?"

"Then why don't _you_ do it?"

Priam let out a hearty laugh at that. "Me? Oh, I'm married, I couldn't be seen walking into a women's only bathhouse!"

Inigo searched his memory to see if he did anything truly awful in the past week to deserve this. Not finding something too out of the ordinary that he hadn't already gotten karmic backlash for. "This is utterly ridiculous. I'm going back to camp."

"Wait!" Priam's hands grabbed Inigo's shoulders roughly. "You want to be with that warrior, correct?"

"You mean my duels with Kjelle? It would be nice, but I haven't gotten past her defence just yet…"

"If you do this for me, you will be done and I will tell you how to bypass that defence of hers."

Oh, great. That was an _actually_ tempting offer. "… Fine. I'll just… ask." Inigo moved Priam's hands off of him and took a deep breath. He had to come up with what he was going to say quickly, it couldn't be that hard to ask.

As he stepped into the bathhouse, Inigo felt a sense of relief as he saw it was a rather standard room with a long desk. The woman behind the counter raised an eyebrow and said, politely, "The male bathhouse is down the street, and the coed one is a little past that."

"Oh, well, actually, I'm looking for someone. Er, someone _s_ , really," He took a few steps towards the desk, trying not to seem like some overbearing boyfriend or stilted lover. "I'm… I'm with the Shepherds, see, and Chrom – you know, the commander – sent me to confirm the whereabouts of three ladies in particular."

It was a lie and Inigo felt a little bad for saying it. He supposed it wasn't a complete lie, there was a blue haired swordsman who needed to know where one of them was. The woman at the desk looked skeptical. "And just who are these women?"

"Well, there's three of them… Two of them have pigtails, and the one with shorter ones might have mentioned something about heroes or just having a generally 'bouncy' attitude? The other one is just _all_ attitude. The last one is a regal kind of gal, super serious attitude and she probably has a sword with her."

The woman tapped her chin. "No… I don't think we have anyone like that. They sound colorful enough that I'd probably recognize…" She blinked and looked past Inigo. "I changed my mind. I think I've seen them."

"Huh? What's so different?" Is she going to try to swindle him out of money? He didn't get that much more given his past behaviors these days…

"Inigo?" A feminine voice came from behind him. "What are you doing here?"

Oh no. Inigo turned slowly to see the very three he was looking for standing in front of him. "W-Well, you see, Chrom sent me to just confirm your plans for this evening…" Lying to his friends was a lot harder than he thought it was going to be.

Luckily, Lucina seemed to accept that at face value. "He can be a bit of a worrier. When you go report to him, tell him we will be here for about an hour before going to dinner. We should be back in camp by nightfall."

Severa eyed him skeptically and might've said something, but Inigo gave a little smile and quickly made his way to the door. "Why thank you, Lucina, I'm glad that I was able to find you all so fast! I suppose I'm simply lucky enough to have guessed this place first…" Before they could really process much, he left the building and dashed back to Priam.

"They won't be back in camp until nightfall. Are you content?" Inigo looked back to the bathhouse and sighed in relief that they didn't follow him out.

"Very. You are finished here, I must go make sure my son doesn't get lost on the way to her."

"And about our deal…"

"Yes, yes, come close and I shall whisper the secret to overcoming any defence…"

Meanwhile, Morgan took his first few steps into the jeweler's shop and was floored by the amount of variety within. Maybe it was because this was a port city, but there were many exotic necklaces and bracelets on display. Distressingly, however, there were not that many ring options available.

He didn't see the owner just yet, so Morgan walked through the wares to see if some idea of what to get Severa came to mind. Of all the (expensive) bracelets and necklaces he had already given her, there was unfortunately no real common quality to all of them. The ones she owned generally were baubles that caught her eye as they walked by windows and booths.

"Looking for something specific, young man?" A voice called from behind the counter. How this old man got into the room so silently was beyond Morgan.

Being so caught off guard, Morgan held Inigo's ring in his hand and blinked dumbly towards the owner. But soon, his mind caught up with reality and he stepped forward, setting the ring on the counter. "I need a ring in this size, but I really don't know what to get…"

"You won't find rings in the necklace section, you know," The owner took the ring and looked it over appraisingly. Morgan could see the gears turning in his head. "Rather fine piece of work, and lucky for you, this size happens to be rather average. It wouldn't take too long to fix a ring to this size if you're so intent on one that doesn't fit immediately."

That was a load off Morgan's shoulders. Once he got over to the ring section, he had begun to worry that he wouldn't be able to find anything. "Okay, so, here's the situation," Morgan began, "There's this girl I really like, I mean, love, really, and I want to get her a ring." He let out the part that it was a "suggestion" by his father.

The owner nodded slowly, smiling, "I have helped out many a young lad for this situation. Why don't you tell me about her?"

Morgan ran a hand though his hair as he formulated his thoughts. "Well… she starts out really cold to people, but then she warms up to them in her own special way. Although, even when she's cordial, she can come off as standoffish…" The way he was describing Severa made her seem like a person you probably wouldn't want to hang out with, let alone buy rings for!

He put his hand on his face, rubbing his nose with his thumb and index finger as he tried to backtrack. "I-I mean, she has really great qualities! She's super strong and makes amazing soup… She's also a huge perfectionist, but I think that comes from her mother, mostly. Coming from someone who was hailed as a 'genius' and having to take up that mantle is rough on her."

Morgan had a thought just then. Was he like her in that respect? Was that how he was before he lost his memory? Having to live up to their parents wasn't easy, but Morgan was glad he had a chance to work with his mother, but did he resent her, like Severa did to Cordelia, at one point?

"She wants to be her own person, but everyone is constantly comparing her to her mother, and deep down she wants to be just as 'perfect' as her mother…" He hoped Severa didn't mind him telling this jeweler that. It seems important to get it out in the air if he is to get her the perfect ring for her.

The old man was silent, hand on his chin in thought. The silence lasted a few, rather tense, minutes before he said, "If she loves you the way you love her, I believe she would be ecstatic to get any ring from you."

"Huh? That doesn't seem right…"

"Son, I've been at this job for four decades. There are lads worrying about the 'right ring' every year, and I think if you know your beloved as well as you do, you would know what sort of ring she would adore."

Morgan leaned down against the counter, gazing into the ring display. "And she would adore one just from me? Hmm…" He looked over the rings slowly, imagining the ring on Severa and her reaction to getting it.

One caught his eye after a few minutes of intent searching. "That's the one!" There was little doubt she'd love it. Now all he would have to do is find her and give it to her…


	4. Finality

Despite being described by others as airheaded, even Morgan could see why it was his father told him to get a ring. Which is why he took careful deliberation to avoid Priam at every given opportunity for the remainder of the afternoon. It was remarkably simple to accomplish, actually, as Priam wasn't exactly subtle in the way he was holding a barrel to himself and following close by.

True, he would have preferred to simply dig a hole and leave Priam in it until he was finished with his mission, however a city is no place for a pitfall. That, and Morgan did not want to get in trouble from his mother. The easiest part was honestly leading Priam through the city until he was able to slip past his father's eyesight and back to camp.

When Morgan did return to camp, he sought out Inigo, after all, he had a ring to return. Inigo was standing outside of Kjelle's tent, looking more nervous than Morgan had ever seen him. "Hey, Ini-"Morgan started, but Inigo closed the distance between the two in an instant, clamping his hand on Morgan's mouth.

In a whisper, the kind that was just as loud as actually talking, Inigo said, "Don't talk too loudly. Where's Priam?" Morgan shrugged and Inigo seemed to relax. "Good enough. What do you want?"

Morgan held up Inigo's ring, and Inigo released Morgan's mouth. He simply placed the ring in Inigo's hand and turned around to walk away, giving Inigo a thumbs up as he did. Morgan returned to his tent to wait for Severa.

The wait for Severa was agonizing, however.

Morgan tried to keep himself busy by reading some of his tactics books, but within a few minutes his mind was wandering away from the book and back towards Severa. He hadn't a clue where she was at this hour, maybe she wasn't even going to come back tonight? Or worse, she is sleeping in someone else's tent for whatever reason, like… like a slumber party!

"Maybe I should've asked Inigo if he knew where she was…" Morgan said, sighing almost as loud as Yarne did.

"Where who was?"

Morgan turned to the voice and grinned. "Severa!"

"Don't tell me you couldn't even find your mom or something." Severa looked absolutely radiant, though she usually did in Morgan's mind, but this time that intensity was multiplied tenfold!

"Oh no, nothing like that!" He stepped to her so fast he almost tripped and toppled both of them over. Thankfully, he stopped himself just before that happened, and used that momentum to hug her instead. _Very smooth_ , Morgan thought to himself.

Severa rolled her eyes, but returned the hug. "And why are you so affectionate today? I was only gone for the afternoon!"

Morgan pulled back and patted his pockets down. "Yeah, but I've been needing to see you since then! I got something for you…" Finding the ring, he pulled it out and presented it to her.

It was a silver band in the shape of wings, where the tips of the feathers met was a shining ruby. The tent went quiet as Severa was struck speechless. Despite the fact they had already been living together and enjoying each other's company, more than before anyways, there was always a niggling thought in her mind that it wasn't "official".

Now, however, she was left a sputtering mess as her mind caught up with what her eyes were seeing. "What… What is this for?"

"I think you know exactly what it's for," Morgan said as he took her hand slipping the ring onto her hand. "Now, why don't we go ahead and cook something? I know it's late, but we have to celebrate somehow!"

Severa could not believe that the tables had been turned on her so quickly. Before, it was Morgan ending up confused as he washed the dishes. Now, it was her being confused as they cooked a light stew. After thinking everything over after a few moments, Severa leaned over and kissed Morgan's cheek. "Thanks, you dunderhead."

The two couldn't be happier as they ate together in the quiet night.


End file.
